


could start fires with what i feel

by Suicix



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Feelings, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4999543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suicix/pseuds/Suicix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nexus may have their greatest adversary on their side now, but what Wade and Heath need is some certainty.</p>
<p>Set post-Hell in a Cell 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	could start fires with what i feel

**Author's Note:**

> if you're reading this fic without the knowledge of what happened at hiac 2010, wade had a match against cena with the "cena joins nexus or nexus disbands" stipulation and won if that wasn't obvious from the summary. after the match, these two hugged a whole lot. wade and heath, that is. not cena lmao. cena just sat in the ring looking sad tbh. i didn't actually watch wwe at this time, but i wrote this (and still become Filled With Rage when i think about how nexus was booked).
> 
> Title from "Fires" by David Ramirez.

“I don’t believe it!” Heath exclaims for what must be about the millionth time since the match ended. “John Cena, a part of Nexus...” He laughs, almost a cackle, but Wade thinks it’s just a bit too sunny for that. “All because we’ve got such a great leader, huh?”

“Well,” Wade starts, trying to sound like he doesn’t actually know that’s true. “I think there’s something to be said for the rest of the group, too. One of them in particular.” He squeezes his... oh _God_ , what word should he even be using so refer to Heath? They’ve never actually talked about it. They’re not boyfriends. Definitely not. It isn’t that rigid. Obviously they’re friends (with certain benefits), even if Heath does drive Wade half up the wall sometimes. They’re even more obviously teammates, so Wade settles on that: he squeezes his teammate’s hand, and Heath just beams up at him.

And – and that. How the hell did Wade manage to get that? Someone who seems to look at him with sparkling eyes like he’s what grounds and centres them, someone who can do this even with the constant direction Wade has to take to become colder and more ruthless. It’s unfathomable.

“That 450 Splash Gabriel does _is_ pretty good,” Heath jokes, and Wade snorts.

“I’m talking about you, you idiot,” he says, gently elbowing Heath in the ribs.

“I know you are.” Heath’s smile seems to calm, his voice softens, and Wade feels Heath’s hand relax in his own. “Just wanted to hear you say it yourself.”

Wade doesn’t let go of Heath’s hand all the way up to the hotel room, not until it’s required for him to let go. Usually it’s Heath who makes sure to keep Wade’s hand in his, who whines and pretends to sulk when Wade pulls away, but this time... Wade doesn’t know what it is, but there’s something _different_ tonight. Maybe it’s the win.

They don’t switch the ceiling light on, just the lamp by the side of the bed. The room’s aglow, and Wade flops down on one side of the bed, not even bothering to take his shoes off first. Heath on the other hand, does bother, and then he’s kneeling up on the bed and moving his way up it like that. He lies next to Wade, folding his arms behind his head and turning his head towards Wade with a smile just as bright as the one earlier.

“How’re you feeling, huh? Now that we’re winning matches. Or, you are at least. Runnin’ shit like we should be.”

“Tired,” Wade answers honestly. “But good. Definitely good.” He glances away from Heath for a moment, up at the ceiling and then back at him with a different look in his eyes. “I could be… I could be _better_ , though.”

Heath raises his eyebrows at him. He knows what Wade means, what he wants.

“Thought you were tired, huh?”

“Not _I need to go to sleep_ kind of tired, but _tired out because I just had a match_ kind of tired. There’s a difference.”

“Right,” Heath says. “The difference being that you wanna get off, hm?”

Wade can’t exactly lie there. He smirks, unable to hide it. “Perhaps.”

“Maybe if you join me in the shower,” comes the sharp reply, and Wade’s smirk grows wider. He sits up and follows Heath to the bathroom. Besides, he could use a shower anyway. Even if he did have one back at the arena after his match, he’s still feeling sore from being in the ring.

The two of them together hardly fit in the tiny hotel shower, but Wade doesn’t mind that it’s a tight squeeze and Heath doesn’t seem to either. They tend to avoid showering together in bathrooms this small, but if this is what Heath is going to give Wade, then Wade is going to take it.

It’s simple and easy and most of all _good_. Wade isn’t even bothering to find better words right now; he’s too busy focusing on how warm Heath’s skin feels against his even compared to the rush of water.

When they’re done, both of them thoroughly dazed and spent, Wade pulls Heath in close against his chest. The shower’s still raining down over them both, sticking wet hair to skin, and they just hold onto each other underneath it, not wanting to let go of each other or the moment. Not wanting to have to remerge to the real world outside the hotel room.

Once they’re out of the bathroom, Wade towels Heath’s hair dry for him. It’s a very different kind of intimacy to sex, yet Wade feels just as close to Heath in these moments.

“Thanks,” Heath murmurs when Wade finishes, and they’re back beside each other on the bed again.

Heath settles himself against Wade’s chest, in the perfect position for Wade to reach out and start stroking through his hair, but when Wade’s about to actually do it, Heath pulls back and sits up again. Wade frowns over at him.

“We’ve gotta talk, Wade. About what we’re, uh. What we’re actually doin’ here,” Heath says, and Wade’s eyebrows furrow. “I mean. I like it with you. The two of us. But we’ve gotta talk about it, and what... what is this?”

“What’s what?” asks Wade. He thinks he knows what Heath’s getting at, but he can’t be too sure.

“Us,” Heath says simply, gesturing between the two of them. “What are we? I mean, we share hotel rooms. Hotel rooms with one bed. And a lot of the time, we have sex on the bed. Or maybe not on the bed, but in the room at least, and...” He pauses. “It’s not just that, though. You also stick up for me over everyone else on the team and you hold my hand and I swear I see your eyes light up when you look at me. That last one might just be me hoping, but–”

“I don’t think it’s just that,” Wade interrupts. “In fact – I know it’s not. You aren’t imagining anything. I know what I look like when... when I look at you.”

“Yeah, I... I know. Just didn’t know if you saw it too.” Heath smiles – to himself rather than at Wade, Wade thinks – and Wade can’t tell what he’s thinking at all. “Kinda love you, y’know.”

_What?_

“What?” Wade can’t help but repeat his thought out loud, not because he didn’t hear what was said but because _of_ what was said and how. Heath’s voice was quiet, almost shy: so unlike him because he’s _not_ quiet, _not_ shy; he’s loud and unabashed in every way, in almost any situation.

“You heard me.”

Wade did. They both know he did. He just doesn’t know what to say, is all. Just doesn’t know how to take it, the solidity of what’s practically an _I love you_. OK, so perhaps the word _kinda_ isn’t exactly solid, but it’s something more than what Wade had just managed to settle into: a still somewhat ambiguous (though less vague than before) bond based on solidarity and friendship and sex and... love.

“I did,” Wade says. “Do you... do you mean it?”

When he hears himself, he hears cracked, quiet, small, _scared_. Just as unlike himself as Heath sounded earlier. It’s frightening, really: how he, the man who’s been singlehandedly (OK, maybe not necessarily singlehandedly, but Nexus _was_ all his idea) injecting fear into the entire company this year, is all choked up over a discussion about something like _feelings_. Almost as frightening as the feelings themselves.

“I know I say a load of stuff that’s fuckin’ useless and meaningless, but that wasn’t. That wasn’t useless and meaningless at all.”

He sounds more serious than Wade’s ever heard from him before.

“Good,” says Wade, because he couldn’t take it if Heath didn’t mean it. “That’s – that’s good.”

Heath reaches over and takes Wade’s hand in his own to squeeze it. He doesn’t say anything else, just nods and smiles. Somehow, it’s as if he’s saying that he understands that Wade can’t give him the words back in return just yet. And that that’s OK.

 

 

The next day, Wade watches the footage of his match with Cena from the night before. He smirks when he gets that pinfall, one-two-three, no matter how much the back of his mind is nagging him that he only really got it because of the interference.

The post-match in ring celebration is more interesting than the match itself, though. Heath practically runs at Wade, the first of the team to reach the ring, and he throws his arms around Wade when he gets there. He keeps at it, too: the smiles, the touching. When Wade’s out of the ring he finds himself with Heath charging at him for a hug again, and Heath’s the one to raise Wade’s arm as they go back into gorilla. Most of all, it’s there in his eyes: how much he burns and blazes with what Wade can only now see as pure love for him. It’s so obvious now, now that he’s heard the words himself.

Once he’s done watching, he goes to seek out Heath in the locker room. He’s the only one there, luckily, just sat on one of the benches sorting out his ring gear.

“All right?” Wade asks, sitting beside Heath and leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek.

Heath nods, looking a little surprised. Even if there isn’t anyone else around, the locker room’s still a public place and it’s a little strange for Wade to be engaging him in any kind of affection when someone could walk in and see.

It’s why Wade has to take his chance now, isn’t it? When no-one’s around. Before anyone can come in and catch the supposedly so ruthless leader of Nexus in a moment of vulnerability. Even if the person who walks in is someone else on the team.

“Love you, yeah?”

Heath’s eyes widen almost wildly and there’s a moment of complete still and silence before he gets his arms wrapped around Wade, tight. Wade thinks it’s the first time he’s managed to render Heath completely speechless. (OK, maybe he’s done that during sex, too. But that hardly counts when compared with this.)

“Yeah,” he says against Wade’s neck. He’s still taken aback, Wade can hear it in his voice, and Wade just tightens the hug in a way that he hopes tells Heath how much he means it. Just as much as Heath meant it the night before.

They’ve got RAW to worry about tonight, still got Cena to worry about even if he’s been forced over to their side now, but like this, it hardly even matters.


End file.
